18.3.13

Last summer I had the pleasure of spending two months in Turkey. The reason: shoes, of course. Haha, I'm a dork, I know, but it's true, it was for shoes.

While there are many tough aspects to creating a shoe line (the waiting. Oh the waiting) the silver lining to that are the places I travel to in search of factories, work shops and materials to finally end up with the final product, my shoes.

Two months in Turkey meant many different trips around the country. I will explain each one in its own post as they were all so different.

I'll start with Istanbul.

One of the views from Galata Tower

It's such a large city, I feel it has several city sky lines. It's the only city in the world to lie on two continents. The European side felt more Asian, and the Asian side had neighbourhoods that reminded me of some neighbourhoods in Milan.

You get around the city in taxis, trains, buses, trolleys, trams and ferries -for public transport. And yet I felt it was so crowded we could have used another mode of transportation to get around. I love busy crowded cities. I love the energy the crowds bring.

Spice Bazaar

Outside at Grand Bazaar

I like going to places that are new to me. Istanbul felt that way. When I lived in Italy it didn't feel like a new place, I say this in a very good way: it felt like Venezuela; it felt like home. But Thailand and Turkey are entirely different from home for me and that was exciting.

A very crowded Monday night out.

This taxi driver had a collection of model cars on his dash. Also, notice all of the traffic. This was 2am on a week night. Tuesday morning to be exact. I would hate to see what Friday night looks like.

Istanbul is such a large city that I will have to write more about it in another post tomorrow. In tomorrow's post I'll show some things I wish America would hurry up and copy. Some very civilised answers to some everyday headaches and heartaches.

Hugs Kisses and travel Shoes,

Rocio

ps I will update on my marathon training later this afternoon. I learned a very rich lesson this weekend about training for a marathon.